Sing the Azures
by Wandering Aesthetic
Summary: In order to save his dead race a despairing Ellimist creates the Time Matrix, but not even time can save him from Crayak.
1. Prologue

Ellimist

My name is Azure Level, Seven Spar, Extension Two, Down-Messenger, Forty-one. My chosen name, the name that my friends called me, is Toomin. I say "called" because it has been an exceedingly long time since anyone called me by anything but my game name. That name is Ellimist, and it has been whispered in many corners of the galaxy, sometimes with fear, sometimes with reverence, sometimes with gratitude.

I enjoy the gratitude the most.

For many millennia I wandered the stars, helping sentient races in need and encouraging life on previously barren worlds. In that time I had only ever encountered one being anything like myself. That being called himself Crayak. In many ways, he was like me. We were both the last members of a dead race. We had both expanded our consciousnesses and our bodies to include vast amounts of circuitry and machinery. We were perhaps the two oldest sentient beings in the galaxy.

With all our similarities, we held one crucial difference. While I chose to preserve and support life, Crayak chose to support death and misery. On our first meeting he boasted that he would destroy all life in this galaxy, killing me last of all.

Since then, we had played a vast game, I on the side of life and he on the side of death.

I was losing.

In my desperation, I sought to destroy Crayak. For many years, we fought each other. We chased each other across the galaxy, each endeavoring to outdo each other with new weaponry. Worlds and civilizations were destroyed in our wake. I told myself it was worth it if I could defeat my enemy at last. At last, Crayak was able to lure me into an inescapable trap: a black hole.

The pain was exquisite. Strange, as so much of it could not be called my body in any traditional sense, but those were my sensors, my eyes and ears, those were my limbs that were not just crushed in the black hole, but stretched and twisted, spiraling into its gravity well. I should have been annihilated. I was annihilated, squashed into the space of molecules.

And yet…

As each piece of my manufactured body fell into the vortex, as my enemy gleefully destroyed the parts of my body that had remained outside of the black hole, my consciousness and my senses remained, and not only remained, but grew.

I could see the inside and outside and top and bottom of all things with no regard to their distance from me. Their distance from me? Where could I be said to be, exactly? I was everywhere. I could see energy. I could see space-time as millions of strands of possibilities to be chosen from. And I could not only see all of these things, but manipulate them.

I was overwhelmed. Astounded. I don't how much time I spent trying to unravel my new senses and abilities. It might have been decades. It may have been minutes. Time became meaningless.

In any case, both my old and new senses showed me one thing: my enemy was still out there, enjoying his victory over me, and that meant setting out to destroy the life I had sought to save. I was stronger than him now, but I saw that as soon as I revealed that I still existed, he would replicate the unlikely accident that had caused me to be as I am now. Could I allow that to happen? Could I allow Crayak that kind of power? Did I have any choice?

In my reverie, I examined the curve of space-time. I could see the structure of it. Understand it, perhaps like no being had before.

I could manipulate it.

Wait. I could… manipulate… time? Change it?

I had not felt fear in many millennia, but I felt it now. I could eliminate Crayak, undo the timeline so that he never came to this galaxy, or so that he never existed. Yet… what right did I have to wield that kind of power? What meaning did any action have, what meaning did all of my actions have, if they could simply be undone?

Even as I was filled horror at these thoughts, another possibility overcame them. If I could travel through time, I could save my people. I would no longer be the last Ketran. I had been lonely for so long, with only my sworn enemy for company. What would it feel like, to be wrapped in the wings of my long lost Aguella? To play a game with my old rival Menno, a game without the vast stakes to which I had become accustomed? To fly free without the weight of the galaxy on my wings?

As soon as the idea formulated, I knew I would not be able to resist it. But how to go about it? To what point in time would I go?

I could go back to before the Capasins had decimated my homeworld, but that would be futile. I did not know when the Z-space broadcasts that had attracted them had begun. Even if I was able to stop them once, I could not prevent them from happening forever, not while living as an ordinary Ketran.

I could go back further and give my people weapons that could defeat the Capasins, but that would destroy all that we were. The Ketrans were non-violent by their nature. Community was sacred and killing absolutely prohibited. No matter how much two neighbors hated each other, each depended on the other for lift.

As much as it hurt, I would need to return to a point after the destruction of my home, to the time when I led a group of refugees across the stars, trying and failing to find an ecosystem like that we had come from, a world of vast, floating crystals.

I knew now that there was no such world. I had loved the Equatorial High Crystal. I had loved the Azure level and could not accept that my offspring would never see it. Now I knew better. If the Ketrans were to survive, they would need to change. I was still attached to life, but I was not so attached to wings and pods as I was. Hadn't I loved children with hooves and dangerous scythe-like tails? I would love my New Ketran offspring, whatever environment they needed to adapt to.

I could not live among the Ketrans as I was now, but I could easily replicate my old body. There was also my mind to consider. Early in the process that had made me what I was, I had absorbed the memories of many of my fellow Ketrans. I would not be able take those with me and enjoy their company fully. I would also need to excise most of my own memories, leaving only vague impressions of what had happened to me, what I became in this soon-to-be alternate future, and the mistakes I had made that took me there.

I needed one more thing: as my Ketran self, I would be unable to manipulate the timeline as I could now, but I needed a failsafe, something I could use to return to this timeline if something unforeseeable went wrong, a tool that could be used by a simple being to manipulate time. A failsafe, it would need to remain constant in every possible timeline.

This was how I came to create one of the most subtle and dangerous devices to exist in all the universe: the Time Matrix.

Creating the device was deceptively easy. My thought formed it: a sphere, pure white and exceedingly smooth. I gave it the simplest of interfaces. It would be cued by touch and thought. It would need to be simple if any but myself were to operate it.

I touched it with my mind. I needed to be very careful, to look into my past and find a moment while I was on the Searcher where I was completely isolated, a time shortly before I came in contact with Father and began to become what I am. A time where I could hide the Time Matrix.

That proved difficult, but not impossible. Very little of my life had been lived behind any sort of barrier, but there I was, about to flutter out of one of the Searcher's squadron of fighters. I grasped that moment with my mind, recreating it as best I could while altering it slightly, replacing Toomin, sometimes called Ellimist, leader of the Ketran refugees with what Toomin would become. Myself, _The _Ellimist, with the Time Matrix resting under my fingertips.


	2. Toomin

Toomin

Simple as that, I was there.

What it was to have orbs again! To have the organic senses of sight and sound instead of thousands of cold electronic readouts! To have wings and talons and pods and the whole lovely package! I flapped my wings experimentally, wiggled my fingers, and smiled at simple joy of being a living creature.

I was enclosed in the fighter. That was distressing, the low ceiling made me nervous, a fact that would never change, not after a million flights. The space was made even smaller by the large, white orb that nearly filled it. My gambit had worked. I was back. I could correct my mistakes. Given time, I could correct all of them.

My memories were scrambled. Moments ago I had been in a black hole, hadn't I? No, I had been flying this crate as we made contact with a ship full of Corfinas, the armed fighters giving the shadow of a threat in case they proved unfriendly. It had been unnecessary, uneventful, and certainly the leader was not required on this mission, but I had been hopelessly bored.

Aguella. I would need to tell her that I was back. Back? I had only been gone a few hours. I had been gone centuries. I couldn't wait to see her again.

My mind was a strange place, almost as if I were two different beings with two different sets of overlapping memories. Yet, everything that happened since I met Father seemed strangely unreal. Of course it seemed unreal, it was impossible. Yet, I knew what I must do, that I had to lead my people to settle. It was now or never. Yes.

Aguella wouldn't like that. And what would-

"Welcome back, Ellimist, did you have a successful flight?"

I startled, jumping from my docking perch in a flutter of quills.

A laugh filled the compartment. A familiar sardonic laugh, one I remember hearing from above my head hundreds of times on my home crystal. Lackofa! He had always made a habit of contacting me at odd moments.

"Lackofa, it's good to hear your voice!"

"Is it?" He asked doubtfully. "Were the Corfinas that bad?"

"Oh no," I answered. "A little rude, that's all. They had amazing fins, though. You would have been interested."

"Any leads?"

"No, they said they had never encountered a planet anything like the one we described." I paused for a moment. Should I run my ideas by Lackofa first? He was our lead biologist now, and would be responsible for making our survival possible on whatever planet we chose. No, there was no question, I had already made my decision.

"Did Menno crash the ship while I was gone?" I asked my friend.

"No. He's been rather quiet, actually." Lackofa's tone was a little suspicious.

"Alright, I'll talk to your more face to face. Later."

I freed myself from my restraints and flew from the compartment and out into The Searcher, the expanded vessel that had once been the MCQ3. I flew over the docks of dozens of my fellow Ketrans, delighted to see them alive and well. My good mood must have shown.

"Good news, Commander?" Jicklet called, stopping to hover as I nearly passed her in our artificial atmosphere.

"No, not really," I said, trying to rearrange my features to something more neutral.

"If you say," she said doubtfully. "Crate run alright?"

"Perfect as usual, Jicklet," I turned back in my flight to face her again. "In fact, Jicklet, I don't think I've ever told you what an absolutely essential member of this crew you are. We would have never survived without you."

"No problem, Commander," she said, an odd look on her face as she flew on her way to wherever she was going. The command docks were in view. My heart did a little roll as I saw Aguella, absorbed in whatever she was viewing through her shunt.

I dove down, resisting the urge to spiral in the joy of my long lost wings. Later. I righted myself and carefully equalized buoyancy in order to dock. Menno turned to me, nonplussed.

"I already received report from the other fighters. Nothing, eh?"

"Not nothing," Aguella corrected firmly. "We have safe passage through this sector and data regarding the surrounding systems."

Her voice was resigned and slightly irritated. I could have listened to it all day. Her eyes were still closed as she interfaced with the ship's sensors, probably watching the Corfina ship leave us. She opened them all at once to glance between Menno and myself. I was transfixed.

"True enough," Menno said, but his displeasure was obvious. Some of those planets would support us. Some of them were empty. If the past provided any precedent, we would settle on none of them. "I'll review the data at my leisure, I suppose?"

I paused. I glanced between the pair, torn between two fascinations. I was seeing Aguella for the first time in centuries, and perhaps truly seeing Menno for the first time. I had spent the past several decades watching my back, waiting for him to make a move and overthrow me. Yet… he had been following a leader who had valued the past more than the present, who had risked the future of his entire species just because he missed his home. A leader who was… obsessed? Maybe even unbalanced?

Menno was speaking, but I wasn't deciphering words. He was cynical, competitive, arrogant, and rebellious even when he had no cause to rebel, but what Menno really wanted was to save all of our lives, to live a real life on the ground instead of this half life in space.

"Toomin?" Aguella's voice: gentle, concerned, confused.

"Commander?" Menno's voice contained a different sort of concern entirely, and also doubt.

"Yes?" I snapped, pulling out of my reverie.

Menno repeated himself slowly. "What will our next course be?"

"Send out a _memm, _a time cue for an important announcement."

"Very well," Menno said with some suspicion. "Any clues for the content of that announcement, _Commander?"_

"Yes," I said slowly. "I think it will please you. Until I make the announcement, Aguella and I will be in free flight. You have command of the ship."

Before Menno could object, I had taken flight. Aguella followed, obviously discomfited.

"What's wrong?" she asked when we were a safe distance away.

"Was it that obvious?" I asked with a small laugh.

"We've been paired for a long time, Toomin. I'm fairly well attuned to your _mones. _That's the strongest reaction you've had to me since that time we almost died at Henex Three."

"I was happy to see you."

"Obviously. But there was something else as well. Something I don't know how to name, except… you don't seem like yourself."

We were flying high now, nearing the force field that marked the edge of our artificial atmosphere. I looked down at the Searcher, an island of metal and crystal in a sea of stars.

"I'm still me, Aguella," I said quietly. "I've just had something on my mind."

"Oh? I suppose that's what we flew up here to talk about? Is it whatever your announcement is about?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"I want to settle. To stop wandering."

"Was there something in the Corfina report I missed?" Aguella asked.

"No, I doubt it," I replied, trying my best to sound breezy.

"Then you want us to become surface dwellers? To give up the skies?" she demanded.

"Even if we make our home on the ground, we can still fly."

"If we make our home on the ground we give up who we are!"

"There are anti-grav generators, we could—"

"No! We've talked about this. If we give up lift for all, if we stop relying on each other, we give up everything, everything that has made Ketrans what we are. You're a gamer,_ Ellimist_. You know what this could do to us."

"I know it could let us survive."

"Survive as _what?"_

"Doffnall," I used her chosen name, something I did rarely and then only in private. "If I thought there was another planet in all the galaxy with the right density and composition of atmosphere, or with the right mineral formations to make new crystals, we would go there. But there isn't."

"You don't know that!"

I did know that, but I said: "Even if there is such a place, will we find it in time? We're getting old. Soon we'll be dying. If we die as we are now, the last memories of Ket and the Crystals die with us. If we settle, maybe our descendants can find that place, one day. Perhaps they could even return to Ket, but in order for that to happen, we have to survive."

We were silent for long moments, our flight following the arc of the force field.

"You really aren't yourself, you know," Aguella said softly.

"We are each of us different every moment," I said.

She turned in her flight to gaze out through our force fields at the stars. "I suppose you're right. About that. Maybe about all of it. I've been fleeing the truth for a long time. Maybe it's time to accept that our home is gone. Maybe it _is _time to settle."

"So I have your permission?"

"You don't need my permission, Commander," she said, and flew ahead of me. I thought she was leaving me in anger before I felt the familiar symptoms of my mind turning to mush. "I believe we have other things to settle first!" she called back to me.

I rushed to her, and ever so sweetly, she did.


	3. Crayak

Crayak

The sensors of my vessel came alive as we approached the galaxy, waking me slowly from my long sleep. I had chosen this place as my destination for the variety of signals emanating from it, promising a vast array of potential entertainments.

Plus, it was a spiral galaxy. I found the arrangement oddly pleasing.

I checked the sensors. Yes, those signals were still there, trailing it like a comet.

I had come a long way from the galaxy called Fa-Nah by most of its residents, It was an utterly pedantic name that meant something like "The Great Disk." The Gnosans, perhaps the most powerful and certainly the most obnoxious citizens of that galaxy, had been responsible for seeing to it that I left it permanently. If they held anything approaching the amount of wisdom they claimed, they would have destroyed me instead, but apparently they had no concern about what happened far from their home. Or perhaps they couldn't destroy me. They had repulsed me from the outer edges of Fa-Nah, threatening reduction to single molecules should I ever return, but if they meant to destroy me, why the warning? They claimed to be beyond base violence, but if that was the case, why the threat? I had spent much of the beginning of my journey ruminating on these questions, debating with myself over whether or not to return and formulating at least a dozen potential plans of revenge on the Gnosans.

In the end, I decided against it. The Gnosans were no fun, anyway.

I pulled out of Z-space and wandered the edge of this new galaxy, deciphering signals and languages and pondering what action to take first. A servant entered my chamber, offering a platter of meat. He had waited perhaps a hundred years to do his duty while I was in hibernation. I examined both the servant and the meat, considering, and decided the servant looked more appetizing.

As I picked my teeth with the shards of his femur, I continued to decipher signal readouts. This galaxy had nothing like the organization of my old home, none of the great super-governments, like the Federation of Inner Fa-Nah, reigning over dozens of systems. Each planet was largely on its own. This offered the potential for many small games, but nothing like the last, large game I had come to enjoy in my home galaxy.

Perhaps I had made a mistake in coming here. I was beginning to believe so, steeling myself for another long hibernation before arriving at another potential disappointment when I noticed a bizarre energy signature coming from the fourth planet of what would be an otherwise unremarkable yellow star. I leaned forward, my eye nearly sinking into the hologram. Whatever it was appeared to be _bending time, _yet it didn't have the huge gravitation of a black hole. Then the signature would disappear, continuing to flicker in and out at random. Was there something wrong with the sensors? I switched to another readout, one that would pick up another spectrum of signals. The thing, whatever it was, had enormous energy! The fusion of a dozen stars couldn't match it. That planet ought to be burning, or imploding on itself, or anything other than sitting there innocuously with a significant but unremarkable number of lifeforms inhabiting it.

I had to know what it was. More than that, I had to possess it.


	4. Toomin Again

Toomin

The red wake-up _memm _flashed in my brain. _Time to get up, Toomin. _I groaned inwardly. The act of waking seemed so much more difficult here than it had on the Equatorial High Crystal. Perhaps it was because my wings no longer beat a flight pattern in my sleep. Perhaps I was just getting old.

I stretched my stiff wings and arms and began my daily routine of cleaning and smoothing out my quills. It was getting a bit cool now, not so much as to be uncomfortable, not yet, but soon Aguella, Donata, Forsa, and myself would all be huddling together to sleep in comfort in cold nights. This planet had more seasonal variation than Ket, even though we had chosen the mildest climactic zones for our settlement. There was even some talk of adding force fields and environmental controls to nests. I would resist that, if it came to a vote. A force field was not so unnerving as a roof over your head, but it still meant being contained. I had had enough of that for several lifetimes.

The cool air gave one advantage, however, which I appreciated as I fluttered down the lower level of our nest where Donata and Forsa slept. The foliage of the huge tree that surrounded us was a chaotic blend of nearly every color. The leaves of the trees where we now made our home were lovely violet and turquoise in summer, and shifted down to a pale yellow for the winter, hitting every color of the spectrum in between. I'm fairly sure these trees and their energetic displays of color where a major factor in our final decision to settle here. They weren't the brilliant crystalline colors of home, but they were beautiful in their own right.

I think my race realized how important color was to us when we first encountered Generation 9559. We had a huge hitch in our initial diplomatic meetings when several Generational ships crashed because they could not differentiate between the thirteen hues of green we used as navigational signals. Needless to say, when we encountered the Illamans and realized they saw totally in black and white, with no ability to differentiate color at all, we were truly shocked.

I glanced about the nest Aguella and our little ones shared. Aguella had already left for the morning to go about her work. I vaguely remembered her patting my quills and saying goodbye before she flew off. That was becoming more and more common, flying to work face to face rather than sending assignments over the uninet. There was plenty of space and no organizational challenge of keeping enough people in a flight pattern. There was simply no reason not to. My "work" was similar in that regard.

Donata and Forsa slept peacefully in the lower level of our nest with their wings folded about them, the way all of juvies slept now. They looked rather different from Aguella and myself, with larger and more dexterous talons at the end of true legs, and much smaller pods, along with less obvious metabolic differences, though our genetic input was still evident in Forsa's turquoise eyes and Donata's rather long and messy quills. There was talk of eliminating pods altogether in the next generation, as buoyancy is not so important without the necessity of constant flight, and perhaps replacing them with a tail to allow improved maneuverability through the trees. I was not sure how I felt about that. Many races had arms and wings and talons, but our pods made us Ketrans unique and certainly improve our appearance. I tried to imagine Aguella without her pods and had to laugh.

I shook Donata gently. "Wake up, time for education," I murmured. She twitched her wings a bit, and her orbs cleared. "Okay, okay," she said. She had grown so quickly. She had nearly reached her full wingspan, and was a little bigger than myself. I allowed myself a moment of pride tinged with sadness. Soon, she would be assigned her own nest and I will hardly ever see her. I moved to Forsa, who was already waking. "You know where you have to go today?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm with Deeved," he yawned. I made sure my juvies were groomed and ready, and watched as they flew off to their education. They were each going through a round of experts, following and them and learning what they could from each about biology, mechanics, history, and the relatively new sciences of leadership and politics. Our settlement was full of intelligent Ketran experts, and though none of them had ever intended to be an educator, nearly all of them were now.

When they were out of sight, I turned and beat wing to my own destination, a second nest I had taken to calling my studio. Once there, I flipped open a plastic protective case and pulled out its contents. Both the case and the object inside were a once nearly unimaginable luxury. Back on Ket, no one would have ever been allowed to keep such a large object unless it was a piece of communal property shared among hundreds. It would create too much drag. I blew in the mouthpiece and adjusted the strings until they were properly tuned, then made it hum a meandering, cheerful tune that I had composed with autumn leaves in mind.

I had been credited with inventing the adge. Though I knew I had done no such thing, I had no way to argue otherwise. Music was not a foreign concept to Ketrans, but musical instruments were. I was regarded as everything from a visionary to a dangerous deviant for my invention, among other things.

I played on, absorbed in the music, until my own student arrived. He carried his own, smaller case, covered in decorative paint, and landed with a clatter. "Sorry I'm late, Wise One Toomin! I got distracted watching a cheerif." Cheerifs were small mammals indigenous to this planet, named for the chattering sounds they made. I couldn't imagine how Halof could have been distracted by one, they were distinctly uninteresting as far as I was concerned, but I didn't ask.

"I wouldn't have known you were late if you hadn't told me," I said honestly. "And please don't call me Wise One."

"I can't just call you Toomin, it's weird," Halof protested.

I, along with a few other members of the old crew of the Searcher, had been given the title. It was strictly honorary, but the very idea of holding any sort of position of leadership made me uneasy these days. Considering how ancient and foreign I probably seemed to Halof, I let it slide.

"Show me what you've learned."

"Okay," Halof said nervously as he opened up his own adge. He played a series of chords that we had gone over the last time we had a lesson, and continued on into a series of arpeggios. He stuttered only once, and continued into a simple song I had taught him.

Halof was enough of a beginner that it was hard to say how good he would be at this. Some of the juvies were threatening to become better than me, which made a certain sense. Their minds were young and flexible. Still others showed no promise no matter how hard they tried. They could mimic every note I played, but failed to do it with any feeling and couldn't compose their own work if their lives depended on it. Father had this failing, if Father was ever real, and I had to assume by my ability to create a real-life adge that he was. I had not expected to see this alienation from music in my fellow Ketrans. At first, I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with these juvies, but they showed such vivacity and talent in other areas that I knew that couldn't be true. Music was simply fickle in who it blessed.

I nodded in approval as Halof continued his piece, then taught him another, having him mimic the position of my hands on my own adge and gently correcting his grip where it caused the strings to buzz. The lesson concluded with me guiding him through a series of notes of his own choosing, preparing him to compose or improvise if he proved to have the talent. As Halof packed away his adge, my next student arrived, a female juvie of about Donata's age, and one of my favorite students.

"Hello, Tama," I said as Halof flew off.

"Hello, Toomin," she said with a smile. Our relationship was as close as close to a friendship as was possible between two people of our age difference. She was one of the students who had such difficulty with music. Our first few lessons had been akin to pulling quills, and I regret that they led her to great distress at first. Yet we both came to learn that she had many other talents.

"Do you have everything you need?" I asked her.

"Yes, I think so," she said, pulling several pots of pigments out of her bag along with a few tools used for carving and painting.

"Do you mind if I play while you work?" I asked. I needed the practice to keep ahead of my students.

"Not at all," she said, approaching the trunk of the tree we were nested in with a carving tool.

Like music, visual arts were not foreign to Ketran sensibilities. After all, Ketran artists had created the realistic three-dimensional environments of the game worlds. Yet Tama's work was something different. She had carved and painted an array of patterns up the trunk of this tree in an array of nonsensical reliefs, suggesting fruits or starbursts or things that I had no name for without ever actually being any of these things. There were no less beautiful for being nameless. She flew up to where her pattern ended and began to add to it.

Some of my fellow dams and sires objected to what I taught our juvies, saying that it was worthless, a waste of time, that I was filling their heads with fluff that would make them non-contributing members of society. That hadn't stopped a number of them from commissioning Tama to paint or carve in their own nests. Not all of her works were abstract. I had seen one of her paintings on the branch of Lackofa's home depicting the growth of a young Ketran from infant to a young adult springing into flight, but Tama seemed to prefer the abstract herself.

The attitude of my fellow oldsters was disheartening, if not surprising. Our society had changed in so many ways, so they held fast to everything they could. Yes, in the past a block of wood with a pretty picture on it would have been a frivolous waste of drag. Now, as I found myself arguing in nearly every council meeting, every beautiful thing we made enriched our lives. It was a _good _thing to have a growing class of young Ketrans who were primarily artists instead of technicians or workers. It was good that the dramatic changes in our lives had brought something positive into them. Still, Tama and my other students, along with a few of Tama's own young students, were mostly tolerated by the oldsters because of my status as the hero that saved the Ketrans from extinction.

I tried not to let it trouble me, but there was a reason there was no uninet connection in this nest. Dams and sires would be calling their juvies to tell them to stop wasting time and come home. Plus, I didn't want to be bothered. Since we had settled here, I had given up all position of authority, but that didn't stop anyone from sending me _memms _begging for advice. Menno set up his democracy, like he had always wanted, and it was no surprise when he was chosen as our first and only Speaker thus far. Our government was set up similarly to that of the old Polar Orbit High Crystal. The council made all major decisions for our community, with the Speaker, Menno, leading discussions and calling the issues to be voted on. As our population grew, there were provisions to set up a system of elected representatives. For the time being, every Ketran over the age of majority had a vote in the council, which could be attended in person or over our small uninet. So far, it had worked out well, if not perfectly.

Menno had proven to be a capable leader, a fact which left me much relieved because I'm not sure who besides myself might have taken the position if Menno had proved to be a tyrant.

After we settled here and set up a functioning uninet, Menno briefly took up gaming again. It didn't last long. Soon enough everyone knew his game name and no one would risk embarrassing themselves or the Speaker.

But before that, he solicited me for a few games of Alien Civilizations. Perhaps he wanted to turn our once heated rivalry into something more friendly. Perhaps he just wanted someone who would treat him as an equal.

I won every time. I didn't destroy his species, but made it so we never fought. I would move species away from each other, put up barriers in between them. I didn't play by the rules any more, which is only fair. Menno, with his Intruder philosophy, had never played by the rules either.

Nonetheless, on the thirteenth game we played against each other, he terminated the connection in the middle of the game and never sent me a _memm _requesting another one. I was no longer a desirable opponent.

I was relieved. The game reminded me too much of my old life, something I avoided even thinking about whenever I could. I would have denied its existence entirely if it weren't for one thing.

The Time Matrix.

Its existence weighed on my mind, troubling my most peaceful hours. I had hidden it at the base of a tree several miles from our settlement. I looked over my wing in the direction where it lay. I flew out to check on it every now and then. I should do so again, soon.


	5. Menno

Menno

I waited in the center of the amphitheater, a ring of layered docks in the heart of our settlement, my wings weaving a slow, habitual, and ultimately useless docking pattern. For so long I had urged my fellows to forget Ket and the crystals, yet my own muscles could not. In public, while I was being watched, I did my best to still my wings, but when I was alone there was simply no point.

I didn't strictly speaking _need _to be here, but the setting and the relative quiet helped me focus. This was the time I set aside every day to be available to my people, to answer their questions and requests, and for them to bring forth issues to be decided on in the next Council meeting. Most chose to do so through _memms, _but if anyone ever wanted to chat face to face, they knew where to find me.

I sorted through a few _memms_: opinions on the proposed climate control systems, proposals to send out exploratory parties over the planet's surface, and the eternal suggestions for the final name of this planet.

That issue had been under debate for years. We couldn't seem to get a majority vote on any one name. One faction wanted the planet to have a descriptive name such as "Small, Hydrogen-rich Planet, Fourth from Yellow Star, Brilliant Foliage." Another wanted something brief and artistic, more like a chosen name, much like Ket. Still another simply wanted to call it "New Ket." Oddly enough, these groups seemed to band together on other issues as well.

I made notes on the agenda of the next Council and ruminated over what the naming issue might mean for the future politics of our settlement until I noticed someone approaching.

It was Compta. I had always tried to commit the name of every member of our settlement to memory. Recalling names helped people believe that their Speaker had their best interests at heart, beside the knowledge's more practical application in moderating Council meetings. I managed the memorization with varying results among the younger generation. Nevertheless, I remembered Compta. She was just over the age of majority, being one of the first born on this planet. Nearly the entire settlement had fawned over her in the days that the birth of a juvie was still a momentous event. Besides that, I quite liked her. Her enthusiasm in Council meetings boded well for the future.

"Greetings, Compta," I said as she settled gracefully in the row of docks nearest to me.

"Greetings, Speaker," she said, with modest reverence.

"I trust you are well?" I asked.

She shook out her wings and shifted her talons back and forth, a gesture impossible for us oldsters, and one our young had subconsciously adopted to signal agitation. Our social scientists were fascinated by it.

"Yes and no, Speaker."

"Is there something troubling you?" I hardly needed to ask. The question was: why was she coming to me about whatever was bothering her?

"Yes." She paused, then continued on in a spill. "The behavior of some of the older juvies concerns me. They are practicing acrobatic maneuvers."

"It's not so unusual to want to show off, is it?"

"No, of course not, it wouldn't be, except… they're practicing acrobatic maneuvers to be used for _fighting._"

This chilled me. When we began the genetic alteration on our young, there had been concerns raised that the larger talons could be used to injure. In the end, the concerns had been dismissed. Our culture had always been a non-violent one. Even if our juvies could kill each other with their talons, where would they get the idea?

"Who is doing this?" I asked.

She named a list of juvies, some male, some female. Some I knew, some I didn't.

"I'll see that appropriate action is taken," I said after she had finished, though I was uncertain what that might be.

"Oh, don't punish them, Speaker," Compta pleaded. "It wasn't their fault."

"It wasn't?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"No! It was…" She hesitated.

"What? Who?"

"It was Toomin."

"_Toomin _is teaching juvies to fight?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yes, Speaker, that's why I quit his lessons."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"I'm sorry, speaker," she said, casting her eyes downward. "I should have, but I was embarrassed."

"Well, never mind. I'm glad you came to me now. Thank you. I'll need to take action immediately."

Compta took the hint and lifted her wings.

"Compta?" I said before she took off. "Don't tell anyone else about this. Not yet."

She nodded once and took flight.

I considered my options. The old threat of closure was no good here. We had set up a tentative system of punishment, but had never used it. Beyond that, there was nothing on the register of crimes even resembling what Toomin had done. It was unthinkable.

It was so unthinkable I wondered whether he had really done it. Why would he? Toomin had acted very strangely ever since we settled here, but his behavior was eccentric rather than hostile. In the first years I had kept a close eye on him. He relinquished leadership all too easily after we had fought for it for so many years. Maybe he regretted that now. Most of the juvies Compta had named had been Toomin's students.

And Toomin _had _been the first of us to kill.

_There's a wake-up memm, Menno. Can you read the time cue? _Still, I had no proof yet. I _memmed _a request for confirmation to several of my informants, the people I trusted most.

The responses came in and they were damning: _Youth practicing strange maneuvers east of the highest nests… Juvies named are among the practitioners…Toomin seen leaving settlement alone, returning several hours later, many incidences... _

What was he _doing _out there?

A last _memm _asked_: Apprehend subjects?_

I sent the reply back to all of them: _Leave the juvies. Net Toomin. Bring him directly to me._


	6. Toomin Once More

Toomin

I had just finished my last lesson of the day and was considering checking on the Time Matrix before I returning home when Aguella crashed through the leaves above me.

"Toomin! Toomin! TOOMIN!"

"What in Mother Sky-" I began before I was forced to take flight to prevent a collision. Aguella adjusted her dorsal intakes and barely avoided plowing into the floor of the nest.

"Menno's sent out a team of Enforcers to capture you!" she shouted as I collected myself. "They're on their way now! You need to—"

"Wait! Stop! _What?"_

"Menno thinks you've been training juvies to fight, that you're going to overthrow him or something. You need to flee!"

I was almost stunned out of the air. "What—_Why?_"

"I don't know, but he's not going through the approved channels and—"

"Then how do you _know _this?"

"I've been tracking the uninet for your name. Our 'net's so small, it was easy."

She never ceased to amaze me. "Paranoid, much? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think you'd approve. Menno was about a week away from overthrowing you before you made the announcement to settle. He had enough support to do it, too. I couldn't risk him deciding you were a threat. It became a habit, I guess. _Why aren't you flying?"_

"Won't that make me look guilty?" I said with a nervous laugh.

"Didn't you hear me? It doesn't matter! He's not taking this to the council. He can do whatever he wants to you and pretend you disappeared wherever you go to when you fly off for hours. Now _fly!_"

As she spoke, six Ketrans burst through the canopy of the next tree. "Too late." They were all females, holding a fine mesh net between them. I had no chance of out-flying them at this distance. I was caught.

"No!" Aguella shouted, moving between me and the Enforcers. "You can't do this!"

The leader of the Enforcer team was Salva, once of the Tropical Orbit Low Crystal. Her cerulean eyes looked troubled. Aguella wasn't supposed to be there.

"Get out of our way, Aguella, please," she said.

"I will send _memms _out regarding this, and the whole settlement will know what Menno is doing."

Salva paused, sizing Aguella up, considering. Which would hurt Menno more, letting me go free or letting everyone know how quickly his democracy was discarded if he felt threatened?

"I'll come with you," I said quietly. "Willingly, if Menno will allow me to be tried by the Council."

"Toomin-!"

"It's okay." Aguella turned to look at me. Our eyes met and I willed her to understand. _Send your memms, no one will let me be hurt._ "Menno is shrewd. He won't let this get out of hand."

I flew past her. Without looking back I said, "Let's go."

I was in the center of the amphitheater in a cage made of vines, swinging slightly in the breeze. Menno was docked beside me, just out of my reach. He had called the Council. The people would decide my fate. One by one, the citizens of our settlement trickled in, docking and chatting with each other in low voices. Some gave me reassuring looks. Some watched me closely, glancing away when they noticed that I saw them. Nearly all of them looked confused. Lackofa gave me a slow nod.

"We weren't fighting! It was a game!" A male juvie fluttered down to the platform out of the open sky. It was Halof. Word had gotten out. I breathed a little easier.

"What kind of game looks like a fight?" Someone from the first row asked.

"We were just-!" he started, but Menno interrupted him.

"We'll hear everything you have to say shortly, once the rest of you are gathered." He gave Compta a look that said _I hope you're not making me look like a fool._

A half dozen more of the accused juvies drifted in, some with their own pairs of Enforcer escorts. My own Forsa was the last. Some looked angry. Forsa looked terrified. He looked at me with clouded, unreadable eyes. One of the last pair of Enforcers broke off to speak to Menno in a hushed voice. Menno listened, nodded and looked over the assembled crowd. Their mutterings quieted as his orbs fell on them, and he opened his mouth to speak.

"One of the accused cannot be found, but we cannot delay these proceedings any longer. One of our Wise Ones," he glanced at me with two eyes. "Has been accused of corrupting juvies. Training them to perform combat maneuvers for an unknown purpose—"

"My sire wasn't teaching us to fight!" Forsa apparently couldn't take staying silent any longer. He had Aguella's temper, bless him. "He encouraged us to make dances, but it was our idea to—"

Menno cut him off. "We have not set forth a punishment in our laws for such a crime because it is so unthinkable. We will first hear the evidence against Zone Twelve, Four Hundred Spans, Tree Thirty-One, given name Toomin, and determine guilt. Or innocence." He gave Forsa a pointed look, but Forsa didn't take the hint.

"It was our idea to try to knock each other into freefall. It was a game!"

If Forsa were an adult, he could be held in contempt of the council and disbarred from voting for a period of time—or for life. Since he was a juvie, there was nothing Menno could do to prevent his disruption, though I could practically see him formulating the rules and laws he could bring to vote to prevent this from happening again. I crossed my lower arms and tried not to smile. I'd speak with Forsa about playing dangerous games later. For now I was proud of him

"You will be allowed to speak, soon," Menno said with forced patience. "First, we will hear the evidence against. I call forward Siltz…"

A male Ketran a little older than myself fluttered forward to speak his piece. He told those assembled how he had seen, for several days running, a number of youths flying in formations above the trees in the sparsely populated northern segments of the settlement. Others came forward with corroborating evidence, adding that it they _thought _it looked like fighting, but Forsa's explanation sounded just as plausible in retrospect.

And so it went. The whole situation was looking more and more farcical with each witness. I glanced at Menno. He was twitching his wings in agitation.

"Very well," he said after dismissing yet another witness. "We have one more who must be heard." He nodded toward Compta, who flew to the center. As she opened her mouth to speak, a murmur went up through the crowd. Heads were turning upward and to the east. I followed their gaze to see a small knot of approaching Ketrans. Aguella I recognized immediately, but there were several others with here. They flew weirdly. I squinted to see more clearly. They carried something between them in a net, flapping hard, flying as fast as they could with their burden. I felt my quills bristle as I saw the shape in the net. If I had had the freedom of flight I would have hurried to them, told them to take it elsewhere, that we couldn't afford the sort of panic this would bring, but I could do nothing trapped in the cage. A smaller figure, one I recognized, flew beside them, pulling back every now and then to stay with the slow pace of the others. There was nothing I could do to stop Aguella, four more enforcers, and Halof from landing in the center of the amphitheater, right underneath me, and spilling the contents of their net for all to see.

It was a Ketran, clearly one of our young ones by her shape. She was still, pliant to the rough handling because she was dead. The crowd stirred as realization dawned. A few hopped from their perches in a start, flying briefly about our heads in a swirl before landing again to dare to look at the corpse. A darkened line of charred quills ran across her back, the work of an energy weapon of some sort, I guessed. Death in the amphitheater was bad enough, but one of the enforcers nudged her, turning her face up so that all would know her identity. Compta. But that couldn't be, she was…

The other Compta turned her head skyward and laughed, long and low and unnaturally loud. The amphitheater fell into silence save for her voice.

"My master Crayak wanted to destroy you subtly, but I suppose he was out of practice! But never fear, you will die, and…" She turned to me in my cage. "He will have whatever it is you're hiding. Is it a weapon? That would be so deliciously ironic."


	7. Ellimist

Ellimist

My mind was in freefall. _Crayak. _

Menno was issuing orders for everyone but the enforcers to leave, to seize the extra Compta. He opened the door to my cage himself with an expression that was part apology, but mostly fear.

"Toomin. What does she mean?"

But I couldn't answer. I was struggling to breathe. _Crayak is real._ The part of me that was The Ellimist had always known, of course. I had tried so hard to keep the two parts of my life, the two parts of my mind, separate, only letting them meet when I faced that perfect white sphere.

"Toomin!" Menno shouted.

I pushed out of the cage, past Menno. He didn't matter now.

"Compta! Or what should I call you?"

"I have no name," she said while the Enforcers held her still. "My master has not given me one. Compta will do."

But I could not call her that.

"What does your master—what does Crayak want?"

Her eyes went cloudy for a moment before she spoke. "The thing you are hiding, the thing with the great energy."

"And what if I won't give it to him?"

She laughed at that. "You think you have a choice? He will leave this world a cinder and he will pick his teeth with the bones of your wings whether you give him the object or not."

"Can you send him a message? Can you speak with him?"

"I am speaking with him now."

"Tell him that he would regret destroying us."

"Why?"

"Because he is known to me, and in another time, in another place and another future, I am known to him as well. I am the one called The Ellimist, and in another timeline, in thousands of years, he would call me his enemy. He would call me his rival."

With that, her face and her voice changed. The change was subtle, like a glove being slipped onto a different hand, but knowing the creature as I knew him, I knew that hand was Crayak's.

"Why should I believe this?"

"Because I've known you, will know you, for thousands of years. We fought each other. You were born a member of the race called Glindath, you are the last of that race. You are the last because you killed the rest. You spent nine thousand years in a galaxy called—"

His full attention was on me now. Though I could not see his eye upon me, I could feel it. I shuddered. To feel the weight of his gaze as a mortal was almost more than I could stand.

"Stop," Crayak said with Compta's voice. "I'll believe that you know of me, for now, but why should that stay my hand?"

"Because I am what you crave. A rival. An equal."

Crayak-as-Compta laughed disbelievingly. "Let us say, for the sake of argument, that I would regret killing you. There is still nothing to stop me from taking your toy and killing everything else on this world."

I swallowed. He was right. I would have to maneuver very carefully.

"That toy is a weapon more powerful than any other conceived," I said. "With it I could destroy you, easy as plucking a quill. I am nearer to it than you, and already know how to use it."

"But before you get to it, and you have just revealed that you have to be near it to use it, I could reduce you and this entire world to a cinder."

"But that might damage the weapon."

"No, I don't think it would," Crayak-as-Compta said with a smile. He was right, of course.

"Then you have no curiosity about what I am at all?"

"Oh, I do, but between having my curiosity satisfied and dying, and remaining ignorant and living, I would choose to remain ignorant. If you are as great enemy of mine as you say, I should be glad to defeat you. You have yet to give me an option that is to my advantage."

"Take me and take the weapon. I'll let you have it. I'll show you how to use it. I will be your slave if that is what you want, but leave these people be."

"Toomin," said Menno. "What are you talking about?"

I glanced his way. "There's no time to explain."

He started to protest, but I looked him in the face. Four orbs met four orbs. Perhaps he saw something there, something of The Ellimist, because he went quiet. I turned back to Compta, who went on as if Menno wasn't there.

"They mean so much to you?"

"Yes."

"And what is to stop me from killing them after I have captured you and your toy?"

"My cooperation. You want my mind. You want me as an opponent or at the least a plaything. Kill them and I shut down. Kill them and I don't play."

"There are ways to force you."

I smiled and spread my arms. "You cannot do anything to me that has not already been done."

"I wonder. Still, there is no harm in humoring you. Take me to this thing you've hidden. Just you and my servants." Crayak-as-Compta turned to the Enforcers holding him. "Let me go."

It was spoken casually, without even an air of command. At first, they made no move to obey, but then they saw, as I did, out of the corner of my eyes, movement from all around us, appearing out of the trees.

There were at least a dozen of them. At first I thought some of our earlier audience had returned, but these were no ordinary Ketrans. They were all the same, and they were wrong, as if someone had averaged all our features and put them on one body. They were leveling long black rods that were obviously weapons in our direction.

The Enforcers were unarmed except for their nets. They did as told. The false Compta shook out her arms where their grip had cut into them.

"Menno," I said, turning to him. "Please. We have had our battles and we have had our differences, but we both love our people. Do not follow. Do not try to save me. Do not try to fight, we cannot win. Please," I said again. "If you love our people, do as I say."

I had hidden the Time Matrix at the base of a tree, underground, where none of my people were likely to go. I led the strange, blank Ketrans and Crayak in his false Ketran body into the tunnel where it lay. I heard the agitated flutter of their wings behind me. Though they were not true Ketrans, they were still uneasy with so much earth between them and the sky. I was terrified myself, but it was more than the small space that frightened me. I had a thin chance left, but only a thin chance.

"If you're trying to trap me down here, it won't work," Crayak said. He had said little on the way here. The others had said nothing at all. I'm not sure if they were capable of speech. I'm not sure if they were sentient.

"I know," I said. "And I'm not."

We traveled onward in silence.

"Is that it?" Crayak asked.

Only a few rays of sunlight filtered down through the trees and into the tunnel, but the Time Matrix shone brilliant white in the faint light. I reached out a hand to it.

"Stop! Don't move," said Crayak. His strange Ketrans had their weapons trained on me.

"I have to touch it to—"

"To use it?"

"Yes."

"I don't think I can let you do that."

My heart seemed to have stopped. I was so close. How did their weapons work? Would I live long enough to activate the Time Matrix if they fired on me?

"No, I definitely can't let you do that," Crayak said. "I thank you for bringing me to it. I will see if I can't use it myself. Don't worry, I won't kill you, not yet, not unless you try to resist. Or touch this thing. No. I think I'll have you watch as I kill your precious Ketrans." His eyes glinted evilly as he smiled. "And the rest of your galaxy after that, of course."

I hesitated for the barest of moments, and took an enormous risk. I moved my hand the short distance to the Time Matrix. The beams from a dozen weapons shot silently toward me, blindingly white in the darkness.

For once, I was grateful for Crayak's cruelty. He had chosen weapons that killed slowly and painfully. I screamed as the bolts arced into my body with an agony worse than any I had felt in a thousand thousand lifetimes.

I pulled my thoughts together and brought my mind to the true timeline, the one where I held Crayak in check.

Where my race was extinct and I was alone.

I would have destroyed the Time Matrix then. It was too powerful for any one being to use, even a being like myself. If I with all of my experience had used it foolishly, how much more harm would some poor mortal do? Yet the Time Matrix's function required that it be indestructible. I hid it as best I could, checking on it occasionally, much as I had in my borrowed life as Toomin. I kept the knowledge of its existence from Crayak as long as I could, but eventually he found it as well.

It was a long time before I had returned to my game with Crayak. I had so many questions.

How had Crayak found me? The Time Matrix, of course, but was that all? Was it chance that brought us together again, or was there some larger hand that pushed the two of us together? In all my long life I had never seen any evidence of a power greater than myself, but now I wondered.

Was I chosen for this task? By fate, or by something else? And having made such a huge mistake, was I still worthy of the responsibility? I had made an impossibly powerful, possibly indestructible weapon and risked the entire galaxy. Why? To save my people? To take the weight of the galaxy off my shoulders? Because I was lonely?

Yet I couldn't regret it. I had had juvies of my own. I had lived in a forest of rainbow colored trees. I taught the first children of a new race to sing and paint and create beautiful things. I could have done nothing more important than that. Yet none of it had happened. They never existed. They were never real.

I had seen hundreds of races die, some of whose fates I could have prevented. None of them were as real to me. There were hundreds of dead races with no one left to remember or mourn them, but I would remember Donata and Forsa , Tama and Halof and Compta. They were immortal in my memory.

Once, when I was Father's prisoner, I sang of Ket to free myself. Now, locked in my battle with Crayak, I sang of New Ket, even if I was the only one who heard.

/

_A/N: Well, I hope that was enjoyable. It went very differently than I expected when I began writing it. I had intended for the New Ketrans to go to war with Crayak. Of course they would lose and Toomin would be forced to go back to the old timeline anyway, but they would fight. I realized, however, and Toomin realized too, that without their own terrible power to counter him—without something like the Ellimist, they wouldn't have a chance. So, this ended up being a bit of a shaggy dog story, and for that I apologize. Despite that, I really enjoyed envisioning the New Ketran society and what Toomin would do if he were given an opportunity to live a normal life, and I hope you did too. _

_In the process of writing this, I also came up with a kickass backstory for Crayak. It ended up being almost totally irrelevant to this story, but if The Crayak Chronicles are something you guys would be interested in reading, maybe mention it in a review of this or PM me about it. I might be persuaded to write it. Actually, hell, I wouldn't require that much persuasion. _

_The title of this piece, by the way, comes from the beautiful part of The Ellimist Chronicles where Toomin finally defeats Father in their musical duels. It's part of the lyrics to his song. "A brilliant loser, that's what they called me. Millions of winners, but not me. Loser. But only a loser can sing the Azures, only a loser truly sees."_


End file.
